Dictionary.com defines “culture,” in part, thus:
*the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group of people, as a social, ethnic, professional, or age group (usually used in combination):
the youth culture; the drug culture.
*the shared beliefs, behaviors, or social environment connected with a particular aspect of society:
the rape culture on campus; the culture of poverty; a culture of celebrity worship.
Clearly, a “culture” is a particular group of people,” not a sampling of the population across race, gender, political, age and interest lines that happen to buy and use the same consumer product.
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Graphic: KelTec CMR30, Author
I speak of the “gun culture.” This, like “assault weapon” is a term made up by leftists for political advantage. Just as there is no such thing as an “assault weapon” there is no such thing as “gun culture,” and particularly not “American gun culture,” which with Donald Trump is the source of all evil in the world. The American left’s—Democrat Party’s—definition, via Wikipedia, is a bit different:
Gun culture refers to the attitudes, feelings, values and behaviour of a society, or any social group, in which guns are used. The term was first coined by Richard Hofstadter in an American Heritage article critiquing gun violence in the United States.
Local gun cultures are found all around the world, and attitudes toward guns vary greatly. Among the most studied and discussed global gun cultures is that of the United States.
That definition continues:
The gun culture of the United States can be considered unique among developed countries, in terms of the large number of firearms owned by civilians and generally permissive regulations.
Wikipedia is correct in at least this: no other country has a Second Amendment, nor did any other country have to tame and populate an entire continent in an extraordinarily short period of time.
Americans have always appreciated and needed guns. Democrats have always tried to disarm Americans. They’ve pushed the existence of an evil, destructive “gun culture,” and even tried to deny it ever existed in hope of changing history and making guns easier to ban. In 2000, Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles published Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. Its thesis was that Americans owned virtually no guns until that trend began to change sometime after the Civil War. The book, as one might imagine was universally lauded and won a major history prize.
But pro-liberty scholars who knew the real history of guns in America began trying to replicate his work. Bellesiles refused to provide his methodology or sources and repeatedly lied. The media and academia reflexively supported him, but when too many reputable scholars joined the criticism, it all fell apart:
We have interviewed Professor Bellesiles,” the committee reported, “and found him both cooperative and respectful of this process. Yet the best that can be said of his work with the probate and militia records is that he is guilty of unprofessional and misleading work. Every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed…. Subsequent to the allegations of research misconduct, his responses have been prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory. We are surprised and troubled that Bellesiles has not availed himself of the opportunities he has had since the notice of this investigation to examine, identify, and share his remaining research materials.”
Bellesiles lost his job, his prize was revoked, the book went out of print, and even academia was forced to admit he and his thesis were frauds.
Does America have a unique, destructive, evil “gun culture,” a culture characterized by “the shared beliefs, behaviors, or social environment connected with a particular aspect of society?”
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Grapic: YouTube Screenshot
Guns are universally owned by Americans of both genders, all races, ethnic/national backgrounds, faiths, political beliefs and ages. In recent years, millions upon millions of female and minority Americans, even Democrats, have become first-time gun owners. As the invaluable Bill Whittle revealed in Number One With A Bullet, America is far from the most violent nation on Earth. A decade ago, we ranked #111 in the world in per capita murders. And if we eliminated Dem cities like Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis, we’d rank #211.
In fact, guns are used far more often for good than bad. As I recently noted in Reasonable fear of guns?, Americans use guns in lawful self-defense, usually without firing a shot, as many as 2.5 million times each year. Even the anti-liberty/gun Clinton Administration confirmed 1.5 million uses.
The only certain quality American gun owners share is they own guns. By that measure, Americans have a car culture, refrigerator culture, flat screen TV culture, toothbrush culture, blue jean culture, athletic shoe culture, cellphone culture and haircut culture.
We can, however, affirm Americans share one significant cultural quality: the certainty the Second Amendment exists not for sport or self-defense, but to protect the rest of the Constitution against would-be tyrants.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
